


Dream of the Sakura, Oath of the Sakurazukamori

by CherryBlossomMonologues



Category: CLAMP - Works, Tokyo Babylon, X -エックス- | X/1999
Genre: Frame Narrative, Gen, Other, erotic violence and a cherry tree, i didn't realize this was so messed up back when I wrote it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-12 13:29:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7936486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CherryBlossomMonologues/pseuds/CherryBlossomMonologues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"I have spread my limbs over ten-hundred years.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>I have partaken in ten-thousand deaths."</i>
</p><p>On the origin of the first Sakurazukamori.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dream of the Sakura, Oath of the Sakurazukamori

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2000.

It came to me in a dream the night before I claimed the mantle of _Sakurazukamori_. 

A cold night, of course, as it was winter.  The world was quiet, and I was alone.  Still, I was not uncomfortable.  I settled in for the night unaware of the visions that would assail me as I slept.

Within the dream, the air was balmy with moisture and sweet with the delicate fragrance of crushed flower petals.  I felt something touch the bare flesh of my body and settle upon me with a negligible weight.  All was black, and my sight was obscured even though I had already opened my eyes to the dream.

The light returned gradually, in small gradients.  First a shade of pink, then a dash of brown.  When my vision was clear, I stood before the ancient cherry tree of my family, naked but for the pink petals that covered me like a blanket or a second skin.  I fell to my knees at its foot, quivering with reverential awe as the mind of the tree revealed itself to me. 

 

“I am the tree known as _sakura_. 

“Every spring I garbed myself in the most delicate petals of the purest white.  Every summer I draped my limbs in glorious green and golden sunlight.  Every autumn I shed my vestments so that they lay in a crisp carpet below me, and every winter I slept denuded, secure in the knowledge that spring would come again.   

“Once long ago, I bore sweet fruit.  My children.  Tiny capsules containing within them the future of the _sakura_.  Though they were quickly taken from me, I knew that these young ones would find homes of their own and that someday they would dress themselves as beautifully for each season as I did.  After all, had my own life not begun the same?

“I have spread my limbs over ten-hundred years.

“I have partaken in ten-thousand deaths.

“It is strange, I should think, for a tree to acknowledge a tally of death.  It surrounds and embraces all trees as surely as the cycles of the seasons.  Death of the insect that nourishes the bird.  Death of the leaves as they fall to the earth.  Death to the blossoms whose petals float through warming air.  Death of my very core, my heart of wood. 

“Life, you see, for trees, is only on the outside.  On the inside, we shrivel and dry and crack.  Not really dead, no, for the whole is not dead, but not truly alive, either.  Perhaps that is why it was so easy for death to find residence inside of me.  Like an insect it came, burrowing deep so that the wind cannot free me of its sticky grip.

“Like the lifeblood of that man that stained my bark.

“I could not see his face, so I cannot call him beautiful.  Yet, I know that he was beautiful.  I could not hear his voice, so I cannot call him eloquent.  Yet, I know that he was eloquent.  And I could feel the power that flowed though him fiercer than a raging river that might sweep my very roots from under me.   I do not know what wrong he committed against his people, but so he had done, and they hungered for revenge.

“One spring they brought him before me.  He was a proud man, so his soul did not waver as his people condemned him to death below my branches.  Even amidst jeers and cries and shouts, he did not waver. 

“Gracefully he stepped upon my root. 

“Eagerly he wrapped his arms around me. 

“I knew then that I could not bend under his weight.  He had placed his faith in me; I was to support him against the onslaught.  I knew the meaning of honor then.  It was an honor to be so trusted. 

“So, like a lover he mounted me, and though I hesitated at first, I soon succumbed to the ecstasy of my union with him.  My soul and his merged so that we could not tell one another apart.  I felt every blow, every throw of the stone, every cut of the blade as he felt them.  I felt the silk of his skin ground desperately into my coarseness.  I felt the blood flow from his veins.  I felt that same blood bathe me.

“I felt his death.  Only joy.  That was the moment of sublime completion.  We ceased to be, and then there was only one.

“Afterward, I wrapped his body in my own white garments, stained red here and there with his blood.  They were truly his now, for when he stood up, even then, they did not fall.

“ _You took my death_ , the beautiful man whispered to me.  _I am indebted to you_.

“Indeed, I had taken his death.  It had passed unto me when we had been joined together.  The tree calls to death more compellingly than man, you see, because we exist in a state much akin to the true dead.  Inside, the heart is cold.  Death simply tightens the grip that already tenderly holds.

“I knew that I could not continue.  So close is death, always…we tempt him, but he can only rarely have us.  Now, I had traded my own life for this man’s.  I had done it willingly, gladly, and I would do it again.

“My beautiful lover knew it also, though the shimmering bond of love that bound us still.  _No_ , he murmured into my bark, resting his soft cheek against me.  _No, I will not let you suffer for my crimes in my stead.  You will see a thousand more springs… that I swear to you_.

“The first time, the blood was his own.  I could not deter him.  He slit his own wrists and let the ruby drops fall into the ground beneath me.  The blood entered me though the roots; I could not stop it any more than I could stop him.  It flowed through me, up my trunk, though my branches, infusing my slender twigs, and finally staining my magnificent white drapery with a blush of sinful pink.

“Of course, it was not enough.  It would never be enough, for as long as I am here to tell you this story.  So, my beloved brought others:  men, women, children, young, old, rich, and poor, to me.  It was all that he knew, all that his past allowed him to do.  He stole from them what others had taken from him and buried them close to me, so that my roots would join and twine around their bodies as he had once embraced me.

“Always, I wore my shame in delicate shades of rose.

“The children of the man nourished me as well, for the bond of responsibility was both spiritual and material.  Though sometimes a man and sometimes a woman stood in place of my lover, they all killed so that I could live. 

“In time, their power, like their lives, merged with mine.  I was their focus, and I became their identity.  These children, each and every one, carry my name.

“I wonder where my children are now.  Did any of those seeds from long ago survive? 

“If not, I cannot bear more.  I am barren, for I am frozen in time—the moment I returned death’s grip with one of my own.  Spring may be a time of life, but it is not fruitful.  It was spring then, and I was in full flower.  I had not yet borne my yearly fruit.

“Instead, I stand forever on the threshold between two states of being, denied both the dance of life and the finality of death.  I bloom with the blood of the murdered, not for one-thousand springs, but for a single eternal spring that will not end for as long as the _Sakurazukamori_ strives to fulfill the oath sworn so long ago.

“Beloved, why did you make a promise to me that you cannot keep?”

 

The question resounded against the inner walls of my mind upon awakening, even after I could not remember the rest of the _sakura_ ’s words to me.  I’m not keeping my promise?  That’s not possible.  I had never made such a promise.  I had never sworn any oath upon my life.  Yet, the sense of emptiness in the voice of the tree was nothing like I had ever heard. 

It was a beautiful tree, and when in pain, even more so.  White is attractive in its own, ghostly way, but the bloody petals of the blossoms is a beauty refined and hardened through suffering and sacrifice.  That color encapsulates something that would not be there otherwise.

My love for the tree is consuming.  Yes, consuming is the word.  It swims though me like blood, and it confounds all logic, all reason.  It is passion, blinding and burning.  It devours the rest of my emotions, leaving me none to spare for anything else living or inanimate.  I suppose this love is what makes my family _Sakurazukamori_.

The moment I first recognized this love for what it truly is was the moment that I knew I would be the one to fulfill the pact that bound all _Sakurazukamori_ to this particular tree.  When my mother’s blood fell onto the snow and the camellias, I knew that she had not loved the _sakura_ enough to grant it its wish.  Her love had been divided, impure.  I killed her for her betrayal of the trust of the _sakura_.

However, I know that I can keep my forefather’s promise, and I will. 

Even after I forget the dream you sent me, already fading.  Even after I forget the very love that binds me to you.

Beloved, I will pay death’s price with the lives of others.  I will protect you, and you will see one-thousand springs. 

This, I swear.

 

END


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